WHAT IS 

CONSTRUCTION? 



* wi ij 



Four Addresses Delivered at a 
Dinner Given at the Metropoli- 
tan Club, Washington, D. C, on 
the Evening of May 10, iQ2i 



Presented With the Compliments of 

THE ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS 

OF AMERICA, Inc. 



** 






Construction 

Precursor of National 
Development 

By Noble Foster Hoggson 
Hoggson Bros., New York City 

IF you and I were cast out today upon 
a desert island we would immediately 
find ourselves confronted by the three 
paramount needs of life — : food, clothing 
and shelter. Granted satisfaction for 
these fundamentals it is probable that our 
food would soon be consumed, our 
clothing worn out, and our shelter would 
be the only one of the three neces- 
sities to remain. 

The well-being of any civilized nation 
depends upon the amount of surplus en- 
ergy stored in permanent productive 
wealth. We therefore need continually 
to recognize and encourage the develop- 
ment of that important part of our na- 
tional industrial machinery, which is nec- 
essary not only for building the shelter, 
but also for building the plants which 
produce the food and the clothing as well 
as the means of transportation by which 
these necessities are made available. I 
have in mind "Construction." If I were 
to ask you to tell me what you think Con- 
struction really is, one of you would 
probably reply, "housing," another 
"plant construction, commercial build- 
ing," another "highways and bridges, 
railroads or canals," perhaps "terminals 
for rail and ship traffic, or irrigation and 
reclamation projects" might come to 
mind, while even the thought of mines 

1 



and power stations, city sewerage and 
water supply would be possible. 

Yet all of these are merely divisions or 
classifications of a single industry, and 
should always be included in the thought 
of the whole. An understanding of and 
a confidence in the indispensable relation- 
ship of construction to the sources of our 
prosperity, and its necessary function in 
the development of our national wealth 
is therefore of fundamental importance. 
Construction is Civilization 

The story of Construction is the story 
of civilization. No more ancient record 
of civilized man exists than was recently 
uncovered in Turkistan on the site of the 
prehistoric city of Anau in North Kur- 
dan. Here, 12,000 years ago, cities rose 
and fell and other cities were built upon 
their ruins. 

Five thousand years ago Egyptian 
rulers were struggling with a problem of 
unemployed labor not unlike that which 
England's statesmen are confronting to- 
day and which we may be compelled to 
confront in the near future ; they arrived 
at the solution of their problem by using 
their idle man-power on government 
works, such as canals, reservoirs, temples 
and pyramids. 

The grouping of structures in streets 
of trade, and an increasing attention to 
the building of homes of wealth and struc- 
tures for use in worship, and in pleasure, 
were the beginnings of our modern cities. 
Walled towns became in due course not 
only famous centers of trade, "stolen 
from the desert' ' by Construction's pow- 
erful hand, but the very bulwarks of civ- 
ilization itself against the invading bar- 
barians. 

Rome added road-building to the great 



Transferred f 

l 



architectural and construction develop- 
ment which that nation had in common 
with Greece. Her famous roads knitted 
together the entire Empire and were the 
basis of the power of Rome. The still 
famous aqueducts, viaducts, coliseums, 
amphitheatres, and temples, remain today 
the best evidences of the civilization of 
the world 2,000 years ago. 

Through the middle ages the story of 
Construction runs with ever increasing 
importance, reaching deeper and deeper 
into the commercial, religious and social 
life of the time, responding to every im- 
pulse of war or peace, of crusades or 
world discoveries, of trade organization 
or religious fervor. The great cathedrals, 
the guild halls, the castles and fortresses 
of Europe are the enduring testimony of 
the development of the men of this period. 
The Age of* Science 

The age of science of whose remark- 
able growth we are a part, also finds its 
permanent expression in construction. Is 
anything more characteristic of the Amer- 
ican people than the marvelous sky-line 
that piles up before one on entering New 
York harbor, or the cavernous subways 
that honeycomb the earth beneath it, or 
the mighty bridges that span the rivers 
surrounding it? Is there anything more 
indicative of the spirit of the West than 
the great belts of steel and concrete that 
encompass the mountains and the plains, 
the mighty power dams that hold back 
the rivers while we harness their unused 
energy, the great granaries and store 
houses of the farms, or the wealth pro- 
ducing work shops visible on every 
hand? 

Why is it we place in the corner stone 
of our great buildings the records of our 

3 



day? Why do we carve on their arches 
and pillars the history of our time? Be- 
cause they are the most enduring, most 
permanent depositories we know of for 
such records. 

Did the mighty Cheops return and view 
these massive works, did Joseph of old 
visit the great granaries of the West, the 
Emperors of Rome come back to view 
the highways that keep the parts of our 
great empire united, the members of the 
guilds and merchants of the middle 
ages see our modern industrial and com- 
mercial structures, they would have a 
clear vision of the march of civilization 
from their own to the present times. 

Construction's Place 

These are but fine words, however, and 
pictures for the imagination, were we 
not to find in them the meaning for our- 
selves. First of all they mean that in- 
stead of thinking of the building of houses 
as the individual expression of the fancy 
of the individual citizen, of the building 
of highways and railroads as merely the 
means of an industry we call transporta- 
tion, of factory building and hydro- 
electric construction as isolated enter- 
prises embarked in by isolated groups of 
individuals for private gain, we must 
think of construction as we do of agri- 
culture, or of mining, or of manufactur- 
ing — as one of the great creators of 
permanent wealth, as one of the founda- 
tion stones in our civilization on which 
our progress is built. 

Already indications of this are evident. 
Construction reports have become equal 
to crop reports as barometric indica- 
tors of the material prosperity of the 



country. On their rise and fall depends the 
well-being of millions of our people, the 
success of great enterprises, the future 
welfare of our citizens. 

No better example of this exists than 
the present need for housing. We are 
just beginning to see what far-reaching 
effects on the health, the happiness, and 
the prosperity of our people this single 
element in construction can have. From 
a concern which we have been accustomed 
to think was the business of the individ- 
ual, it has become the concern of the na- 
tion. What is true of housing is true of 
every other element in the industry. Let 
our natural development in highways, in 
railroads, in public work of all kinds be 
thwarted or disturbed by unwise, un- 
economic action or let their progress be 
hampered by lack of proper action at the 
proper time, and we have struck a dan- 
gerous blow at the very foundation of 
our civilization. 

In the second place these thoughts 
which I have brought to you, mean, if 
they mean anything, that every agency 
that serves this great bulwark of our 
life should be made to serve it adequately 
and efficiently. Transportation and 
finance are the most important of these 
agencies measured in the needs of the 
people. Transportation and finance for 
construction are second only to transpor- 
tation and finance for food and fuel. 
As two great economic factors closely 
and jealously guarded by the people 
through their governmental agencies, this 
is perhaps of special interest to you who 
control the legislation of the country. 

The need for adequate information of 
every kind to keep so vital a part of our 
life keen and alert is equally important. 

5 



Here I refer not only to the need for ac- 
curate, unbiased, and well founded news 
and analyses of conditions — a matter of 
paramount importance at times such 
as we are now passing through — but also 
to the need for adequate, scientific data 
such as the Government might gather 
regarding every factor in the industry. 
And so I might go on to the responsibil- 
ities of employer and employee, of archi- 
tects and engineers, and all agencies with- 
in the industry itself. Given the vision of 
construction in its true relation to the 
life of all, the part which each must 
play becomes a service to the nation's 
permanent welfare. 

At every crossing of the ways of life 
stand the heroic figures of the Builders, 
inspired and inspiring, sensitive to every 
impulse, creating, and at the same time 
utilizing the wealth of nations, rendering 
into visible form the genius of each age 
and people. From the ancient days of 
Anau, and before, down to the present 
day, Construction has been the expres- 
sion through which the fundamental im- 
pulse underlying the whole of civilization 
has found form. 

The brief sketch of Construction which 
I have just given you, sounds a challenge 
to the Industry and to the Nation. It is 
futile to believe that Construction is less 
important today than it has been through 
the past 12,000 years, nor can we hope to 
solve today's problems if we ignore the 
striking lessons of the past. Civilization 
cannot exist without Construction, nor 
can Construction thrive without public 
confidence, support, and constructive co- 
operation which are the basis of civiliza- 
tion itself. 



Graft Eras 

By F. L. Cranford 

Frederick L. Cranford, Inc., Brooklyn, N. Y. 

WE invited you here because we 
want to be acquainted with you 
and because we want you to 
know and appreciate the importance of 
the industry we represent. We have ap- 
proximately 1,000 members of this or- 
ganization; we aspire to the position of 
leadership of our industry; that is why 
we must know you and you know us. 

In the years just preceding the war, 
the members of this organization built up 
the public works and utilities of the city, 
state and nation, industrial plant con- 
struction, roads, reclamation and irri- 
gation projects, hydro-electric plants, 
canals, terminals, warehouse, business and 
home buildings, and shipping facilities at 
a cost of a billion and a half dollars a 
year. Therefore, speaking broadly of 
the industry and not individually, our 
function is the construction of the eco- 
nomic facilities or plant of the people of 
the United States and our activity or our 
inactivity has a national importance. 

Next to agriculture, construction is 
the largest industry in the United States 
and upon its development depends the 
nation's economic future. Are we going 
to progress in the immediate future, stand 
still, or retrogress ? One of the messages 
that we have to convey to you is that at 
the present minute progress in construc- 
tion is stopped, maintenance of our in- 
dustrial and economic plant is not being 



fully kept up, and such activity as we 
are engaged in is largely confined to ur- 
gent maintenance and repair. 

The Key to Development 

We feel safe in saying that transpor- 
tation is the key to development ; it has 
always been the key, not only in America, 
but in England, Germany, France, and 
also in ancient Rome, Egypt and Persia. 
Transportation is originally construction, 
and transportation in this country has 
always been the key to development. 

The building of the Erie Canal opened 
the door to the development of the Mid- 
dle West; the building of the Pacific rail- 
roads opened the door of opportunity 
west of the Mississippi. It is interest- 
ing that a very small investment, com- 
paratively, two or three hundred million 
dollars spread over a period of about 
sixty years, constructed the facilities 
which opened the greatest door of op- 
portunity the world has even seen, but 
every single individual that entered into 
that door faced another problem of con- 
struction, of home building, and the de- 
velopment of our natural resources. Who 
of us would venture to measure the per- 
centage of development we have now built 
within this territory? 

A curious idea has been cultivated that 
the railroads should be dealt with as an 
agency whose existence is antagonistic to 
the public interest. A few years ago 
Seth Low being the mayor of New York, 
a franchise was granted to the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad to build a terminal on 
Manhattan Island, providing, incidentally, 
for the construction of tunnels across 
the North and East Rivers, and that fran- 
chise stipulated that none of the facilities 



should be used for the transportation 
of freight, and this restriction denied di- 
rect freight delivery to 2,000,000 people 
then living on Long Island. 

I have never heard a public criticism of 
that prohibition against the use of facil- 
ities, needed not only economically, but 
for our very subsistence, and when a 
great strike tied up New York Har- 
bor, and again in the winter of 1917-18, 
when during the critical period of the 
war we became icebound, we shipped 
food, munitions, and fuel 140 miles, part 
of the way over single-tracked railroads, 
to cross the Hudson River via the Pough- 
keepsie bridge. The engineers of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, to accord with 
the franchise, had laid out their grades 
under the river for passenger service 
only and they did not have a single elec- 
tric freight locomotive. 

Wages 

In the period before the war, labor, 
especially unskilled and semi-skilled labor, 
did not get a square deal; wages were 
inadequate properly to support their fam- 
ilies. The advance in wages during the 
war followed usual economic laws, and 
was to be expected, but the further ad- 
vance in the post-war period seemed to 
me unwise and to have a basis somewhat 
like real estate prices in a boom town. 
I remember a remark by Mr. Gompers 
made just after the armistice to the effect 
that labor would fight for the gains made 
during the war, and I am inclined to agree 
with that attitude, but I am sure the post- 
war advances, which in construction at 
least equaled the war-time advance, was 
a mistake and must be undone. 

The question of wages is very impor- 



tant and its solution essential to our in- 
dustrial reconstruction. It is too bad 
that we must wait until unemployment 
of millions of men with its consequent 
distress, forces wage reductions. I firmly 
believe that we should go at this problem 
with courage and fairness, not misuse 
the power we now have or that we will 
soon get. Unemployment for more mil- 
lions is the alternative. 

The Lockwood Investigation 

The investigation of the Lockwood 
Committee in New York has shown graft, 
price-fixing combinations of many mate- 
rials and corrupt relations with labor 
which have destroyed public confidence in 
the agents of construction. I would like 
to quote the testimony of two men before 
the Lockwood Committee. 

One gentleman building an office 
building for a great steamship company 
stated he agreed to pay $50,000 to a 
labor leader for the privilege of putting 
up that building without labor trouble, 
and that he had received value as agreed 
— he liked it; the other man stated he 
had no strikes, he had paid no graft; 
his work had gone on uninterruptedly 
throughout the year. 

During the last year in New York City, 
notwithstanding as large a degree of co- 
operation between builders and union 
labor as existed in any other community 
or probably any other industry, labor dif- 
ficulties were never more frequent — the 
inference to be drawn from this state of 
facts is very plain. 

Twenty-odd years ago we had a similar 
situation; in that instance a single man 
is reported to have brought Sam Parks 
to New York to control the supply of 

10 



labor for his work and to interfere with 
the supply of labor to his competitors. 
Such incidents are immoral enough, but 
the train of trouble which follows is 
sometimes worse than the original diffi- 
culty. The Sam Parks strikes were the 
prime cause of the organization of the 
Iron League and the non-union erection 
of steel on a large percentage of such 
construction work throughout the United 
States; the effort to break up this situa- 
tion developed the McNamara incident, 
dynamiting steel buildings all over the 
country, for which a few years ago the 
courts sent a large number of men to 
prison. Sam Parks collected a little 
dirty money incidental only to the opera- 
tions of an industrial pirate whose machi- 
nations now after twenty-years have a 
continuing effect. 

Materials 

Construction materials at the peak of 
the high prices reached an advance of 
300 per cent over the prevailing pre-war 
prices and are still double. The Lock- 
wood Committee has compelled the dis- 
solution of several price-fixing groups — 
that is, they destroyed the organization 
through which such price-fixing was in- 
itiated, but what the result will be as 
to the substance remains to be seen. Per- 
sonally, I believe in cooperation as the 
way out, but cooperation of the producers, 
or of the producers and labor, when in 
either instance the consumer is the victim 
is an economic crime, and it is used at 
this time to fleece those in actual need 
of homes. 

The indictment of 110 individuals and 
firms by the Chicago Federal Grand Jury 
on April 30 only goes to prove what we 

11 



already believed and that was so clearly 
brought out in the Lockwood Investiga- 
tion in New York, namely, that price- 
fixing combinations existed in many con- 
struction materials, and it is safe to as- 
sume that they operate all over the coun- 
try. This situation needs drastic treat- 
ment. 

Housing and Finance 

A few months ago this organization 
sent Mr. Richard Waldo on a trip which 
covered quite fully the whole United 
States. He reported upon his return the 
housing shortage as acute in practically 
every section of the country, due not 
only to the actual shortage, but also to 
the demand for better housing, particu- 
larly by the common labor which had re- 
ceived the larger percentage of wage in- 
creases. It will interest you, I am sure, 
to hear that Mr. Waldo visited and talked 
with bankers everywhere, including the 
president of every Federal Reserve Dis- 
trict. He asked each one of these gentle- 
men, "what part of their credit facilities 
they would allocate to construction in the 
period of reconstruction then approach- 
ing." He received the same answer, 
with one exception from all, that con- 
struction was an individual function and 
credit depended upon the individual 
standing of the applicant. 

The exception, the President of the 
Federal Reserve Bank of Los Angeles 
stated, "You have struck our weak spot, 
we have a nationally organized banking 
system, but no other industry is similarly 
organized ; we have no information which 
would permit us to allocate credit to an 
industry, no matter how great the need." 

There has developed during the last 
few years a quite general acceptance 

12 



that a proper home is a necessity which is 
essential, not only to the individual and 
his family but to the industry that em- 
ploys him. There are few things more 
important to us as a people than to dis- 
continue, wherever possible, the use of 
the shacks and camps common in many 
industries such as mines and other re- 
mote producers of raw materials. We 
would all be surprised at the number of 
men so housed by our railroads. The 
temporary camp of a construction job or 
of a lumber camp is often an interesting 
and fairly satisfactory place and is cer- 
tainly a necessity, but the permanent 
housing of large groups in such make- 
shifts is a very dangerous breeding 
ground of discontent. 

Deferred Construction 

We believe that in the present indus- 
trial depression the construction indus- 
try is an important factor, because it is 
not only a preliminary step to any new 
development or enterprise, but because 
there is a vast delayed program to be 
performed. Ten years or more ago, E. 
H. Harriman stated the railroads were in 
need of an expenditure of a billion dol- 
lars a year for five years; that expendi- 
ture has not been made and it is prob- 
able that the need today is for even a 
greater amount. 

Hydro-electric development has been 
retarded, due to the withdrawal of all 
public lands from entry for such use 
some fourteen years ago. 

The development of all public works 
and utilities was largely stopped upon 
our entering the war, and financial diffi- 
culties have prevented any considerable 
extension of them since. 

13 



Reclamation and irrigation projects 
have been quiescent since 1914. 

With 1,100,000 young men reaching 
the age of 21, and somewhat less than 
that number annually being married, it 
seems safe to estimate that during the 
last six years there has accumulated a 
housing shortage of over a million, pos- 
sibly a million and a quarter homes. 

Adding the delayed public works of our 
cities, and states, roads, terminal facili- 
ties, docks, warehouse, factory, home and 
business building construction, canals, 
and waterways, it is quite easy to figure 
a delayed construction program in the 
United States of fifteen billion dollars. 

We are surely going to undertake the 
greatest construction program that the 
world has ever seen ; we believe that with 
the initiation of this program will come 
general prosperity to the people of the 
United States and it may be that it is 
an essential preliminary of prosperity. 
There are several factors which delay 
the beginning of this work. The great 
questions of world peace and finance will 
emerge in their proper time and place. 
It seems to be our present duty to cor- 
rect the other factors, so that when the 
great questions no longer trouble us, we 
shall be ready to do our share in the 
work before us. 

We feel confident that the fundamental 
and underlying principle essential to 
prosperity and to our proper national 
growth is the development and refinement 
of our industrial facilities, that in this 
work transportation in all its various 
forms is the keystone, but plans for its 
refinement and the extension of our rail- 
roads are obscured by a hostile public 
opinion. We have a vast project of work 

14 



to do which will bring, and may be neces- 
sary to general prosperity, with many 
difficulties yet delaying its start. 

I have endeavored to outline the ex- 
isting conditions in the construction in- 
dustry and to analyze roughly the ex- 
tent of the delayed construction program 
now needed to be performed and the 
importance of starting that work to the 
general prosperity of our people. 



15 



The Concrete Girdle 

By W. A. Rogers 
Bates & Rogers Constr. Co., Chicago, III. 

WITH the advance of civilization 
a new element on which human 
life is absolutely dependent has 
developed. All of the necessities, of 
which food, clothing and shelter are of 
first importance, must be transported. 
In primitive times man carried these 
things on his own shoulders. As time 
went on beasts of burden were used 
for transportation on the narrow trail, 
then vehicles were built to be drawn by 
animals, and this necessitated the con- 
struction of wider trails or roads. 

During the last hundred years, due 
to the discovery of steam and electricity, 
has come the development of the steam 
and electric railroads, operating on a 
modified form of highway with the 
wheels traveling on a rail on a solid foun- 
dation or roadbed. 

The construction of the railroads has 
made possible the settlement and growth 
of heretofore inaccessible parts of our 
country. Before this advent the horse- 
drawn method of transporting products 
to and from the markets limited the eco- 
nomical market radius of any particular 
locality to a very few miles. With the 
development of the railroads, the eco- 
nomical market radius is very largely in- 
creased, in fact is limited only by the ex- 

16 



tent of the country and the competition of 
other sources of supply. 

As the railroad lines increased in length 
and density of traffic, the rolling stock 
was made heavier and speed of travel in- 
creased, requiring the improvement of the 
roadbed or tiie railway highway, from the 
old iron strap rail on wooden stringers 
and dirt roadbed to the heavy steel rail 
and rock ballasted track. Today we have 
a well defined policy and standard of 
railroad construction for varying condi- 
tions and needs. 

Advent of the Auto 

With the invention and development of 
the automobile, a new form of transpor- 
tation or rather an advanced improved 
form of the old vehicular transporta- 
tion has come to the front. Just as in the 
case of the railroads, this has necessi- 
tated the improvement and extension of 
the highway systems of the country. The 
use of this new transportation is limited 
by the extent of the hard roads devel- 
opment. 

There are in this country today ap- 
proximately 2,500,000 miles of highways, 
of which about 50,000 miles might be de- 
veloped into national or interstate routes 
or "Main National Routes." There are 
about 400,000 miles of highways which 
are State Trunk Lines and which lead 
into important centers and to and from 
important market points. I assume that 
eventually this 450,000 miles of highway 
will be improved in some form. There 
are now approximately 300,000 miles im- 
proved to a greater or less degree; ap- 
proximately 45,000 miles are hard-sur- 
faced, 15,000 of which are concrete, and 
the balance of the 300,000 miles are of 
gravel or similar form of surfacing. 

17 



The construction of concrete roads or 
similar hard-surfaced roads in any ter- 
ritory has meant the lengthening of the 
economical hauling radius to any partic- 
ular point from a team haul radius of 
about six to eight miles to a truck haul 
of fifteen to twenty or more miles. The 
concrete road and truck are doing for the 
country just what the railroads have done 
in the development of the United States 
in years past in developing inaccessible 
parts of the country. 

Concrete has been adopted quite large- 
ly by highway engineers as* a principal 
form of material for hard-surfaced roads. 
The development of concrete in the con- 
struction of highways has permitted of 
their rapid construction and improve- 
ment. There is no question but that the 
construction of concrete and other hard- 
surfaced roads must go ahead in larger 
and increasing amounts and we are faced 
with a stupendous volume of this class 
of work. 

There is a danger that the highway 
program may be made of such magnitude 
that it will interfere seriously with rail- 
road development, building and other 
necessary construction work, which is 
bound to go ahead as soon as the coun- 
try gets on a normal basis, by absorbing 
more than its proper share of labor, ma- 
terials and railroad transportation, partly 
due to the fact that highway funds may 
be secured by the sale of tax free bonds, 
while other construction, which may be 
just as necessary, can be financed only 
by taxable bonds. 

It is for the best interests of the coun- 
try, therefore, that we proceed with this 
work with an intelligent understanding 
of the problem before us. 
18 



I believe that the United States Depart- 
ment of Highways or the United States 
Department of Public Works, if our Con- 
gress wisely decides to establish such a 
Department, should have a direct super- 
vision of the entire highway program of 
the country, if possible, to the extent of 
regulating in a general way the volume 
of this class of work which should be 
done in any one year. Our ultimate aim, 
of course, should be to construct the com- 
pleted system of Main National Routes 
and State Trunk Lines of concrete or 
other hard-surfaced and feeders to these 
Trunk Lines to be built of less expensive 
materials. 

5,000 Miles Per Year 

I feel sure that in the near future we 
will be building 5,000 or more miles of 
concrete roads per annum. In order to 
get what this means intelligently before 
us, I am presenting the following figures. 
For this purpose I have assumed the cost 
of $40,000 per mile. This would mean 
for 5,000 miles of highway approximately 
$200,000,000 expenditure per annum, the 
employment of about 100,000 men direct- 
ly on the construction of this 5,000 miles 
for a period of about eight months, and 
the indirect employment in the manufac- 
ture and preparation of the materials en- 
tering into the construction of the high- 
way of approximately an equal number 
of men, or a total of 200,000 men for a 
period of about eight months or an ex- 
penditure of $150,000,000 directly for 
labor per annum. 

In addition, an investment in plant of 
sixty to eighty millions per annum is re- 
quired to construct a program of this 
size, which investment would have to be 
renewed at least every four years. 

19 



Whether 1,000 or 10,000 miles of hard 
roads are finished per year, it is impos- 
sible to complete a program of this kind 
without the aid of the responsible con- 
tractors. Just as the large railroad sys- 
tems have been built successfully by con- 
tract, so must the highway systems of 
this country be constructed. This means 
that the public's money for the construc- 
tion of highways must pass through the 
hands of the contractor to the material 
and machinery men and to labor. It is 
probable that over a billion dollars will 
be spent by the people of this country on 
hard roads within the next ten years. 

Development Follows 

It seems to be a fact that in the his- 
tory of this country some form of con- 
struction has been the factor that has 
made possible the subsequent develop- 
ment of the country, for example, the 
construction of canals permitted the de- 
velopment of Ohio, construction of the 
railroads in the twenty years after the 
Civil War permitted the development, 
agriculturally, of the Western country. 

Often this development has seemed to 
be in advance of its need, but subsequent 
history has proved that the money has 
been well spent and that the rapid devel- 
opment of the country has only been made 
possible by this construction. It seems 
to me that we are facing an era of high- 
way development comparable to the rail- 
road development in the 70s and '80s. 
With the history of the past before us, 
and in view of the magnitude of work to 
be done, it is well to consider how the 
interests of the public may be best con- 
served in this work. 

It is evident that this public interest can 
20 



only be served by the construction of 
the best, most permanent roads at the 
lowest cost consistent with quality, and 
which will stand up under the loads put 
upon them, and then limiting the load 
which can be hauled on them to that 
for which they were intended. 

The construction of concrete highways 
is a highly technical matter requiring 
skill obtained only by experience and a 
competent organization, with a very ex- 
pensive plant compared to the volume of 
the work. This can only be secured by 
the employment of a competent contrac- 
tor. In order that this end may be at- 
tained, it is absolutely necessary that re- 
liable, responsible contractors of expe- 
rience be attracted to this class of work. 

Highway Work Not Desired 

In the past, highway work, because of 
the conditions surrounding it, has not been 
considered desirable by responsible con- 
tractors generally. In fact it has proved 
to be one of the most hazardous forms of 
contracting, because of conditions sur- 
rounding this work over which the con- 
tractor has no control. One of these 
conditions is that of transportation of ma- 
terials. This work is absolutely depend- 
ent for its economical handling on a 
uniform supply of materials over the rail- 
roads, and in the past this has been diffi- 
cut if not impossible to obtain. Another 
condition is that which obtains in the 
construction of any class of work under 
any branch of the Government. How- 
ever, we hope for improvement in trans- 
portation conditions and lessening of this 
uncertainty. 

In addition, if the better class of our 
contractors are to be induced to do this 

21 



class of work, there are certain cardinal 
principles which must be adopted in con- 
nection with this work. Three of these 
principles I designate as Standardiza- 
tion, Stabilization, and Cooperation. Let 
me explain. 

We have in this country forty-eight 
states and each State has its different type 
of highway, different specifications as to 
materials and workmanship, different 
methods of payment and different types 
of organization for handling the owner's 
side of the work. 

The contractor who gains his experi- 
ence and adapts his plant for work in one 
State, has to remodel and recast his ideas 
for work in another State. Cost data 
gained in one State or even sometimes in 
one County of the State are not applicable 
without adjustment for another County 
or in another State. 

Materials acceptable in one State may 
not be in another. The proportions of 
concrete materials are different. Take 
the one item of time of mixing the con- 
crete. One State may require that the 
concrete be mixed a minute, another 
State a minute and a half to get the same 
results, when probably mixing half or 
three-quarters of a minute with a satis- 
factory machine would give equally good 
concrete. 

Standardization Needed 

What is the result? It costs 50 per 
cent more in labor and fuel to mix con- 
crete a minute and a half than it does a 
minute, or twice as much as it does to 
mix three-quarters of a minute. The 
highway engineers of the Federal Gov- 
ernment and the different States in co- 
operation with contractors of experience 

22 



in this class of work should standardize 
plans and specifications and other fea- 
tures of the work, if the money of the 
people is to be spent economically. 
Stabilization 

By stabilization I mean that a definite 
program covering a period of years should 
be adopted. The investment in plant and 
organization for highway work is greater 
than that of almost any other contract 
work, in proportion to the volume of 
work. It is hardly reasonable to expect 
a large outlay for plant to handle this 
work will be made without reasonable as- 
surance that it will be employed long 
enough in reasonably profitable work to 
justify the investment. 

Definite programs of work should be 
adopted by the State or Federal Govern- 
ment covering a fairly definite amount of 
work to be done each year in the various 
districts for a period of years. 

I can best explain what I mean by re- 
citing the history of the highway pro- 
grams for the last three years. In 1919 
a considerable effort was made by various 
highway departments to get the respon- 
sible contractors of the country to take 
on highway work. Certain programs of 
work were outlined, which indicated that 
this class of work would be available 
for a number of years, with the result 
that a good many of the most responsible 
contractors were attracted to this class of 
work. 

They invested heavily in outfit, took 
work at what seemed a reasonable price, 
but more work was let in 1919 than there 
was material available to build, more 
than there was transportation to carry the 
materials from the sources of supply to 
the work, The result was that the 1919 

23 



program was not finished until 1920, and 
some not even then. 

As a consequence the volume of work 
let in 1920 was very small, but 1921 
started with a comparatively clean slate. 
Contractors were led to believe that a 
normal program would be adopted for 
1921 and the work would go ahead. This 
has not been the case, but the work has 
been materially curtailed and the large in- 
vestments in plant and organization are 
idle. 

What the contractors of the country 
want is that a certain definite policy be 
adopted as to the program of work to be 
done over a period of years, and that the 
work be awarded either in the Fall or 
early in the Winter, in order that the con- 
tractors may make provision for mate- 
rials, plant, etc., ready to start immediate- 
ly when weather becomes suitable for 
doing concrete work. This is what I 
mean by Stabilization. 

Cooperation 

The contractors of the country, and 
the Associated General Contractors of 
America are prepared to cooperate with 
the public, represented by their highway 
officials in building roads as economically 
as they can be built. The contractor 
knows what the work costs. He knows 
what unnecessary frills cost. He is the 
only one in a position really to know. 

We stand ready to impart this infor- 
mation to the proper people, and the high- 
way problem will never be satisfactorily 
settled until the highway officials and 
the contractors acquire the spirit of co- 
operation, where they will sit down to- 
gether and arrange the specifications and 
contracts in such a way that all non-es- 

24 



sentials are out, and unnecessary, ex- 
pensive and drastic features are modified. 
I am happy to say this is being done in 
some of the states. 

Further, we are prepared, whenever 
there is any thought on the part of the 
representatives of the public that we are 
profiteering, to cooperate with the proper 
people to determine the truth or falsity of 
the charge in every way by giving cost 
data analyzed into its different elements, 
taken from the records of reputable con- 
tractors. 

I want to repeat that our organization 
stands ready to assist in getting roads 
built at a reasonable price. As a matter 
of fact, almost without exception, the 
country has paid considerably less than 
cost for its concrete highways the last 
few years. 

This cannot continue and there must 
be a willingness to pay a price for this 
work, which will result in a reasonable 
profit, or else the responsible concerns 
will withdraw from the field and in the 
end the cost to the public will be in- 
creased by the employment of irresponsi- 
ble firms. 

If Standardization, Stabilization and 
Cooperation are adopted as the slogan 
of the concrete highway program, we will 
then build this concrete girdle around this 
great country of ours in such a way as 
to get the greatest return with the least 
expenditure of money, which is the de- 
sire of the A. G. C. as a body and of 
its individual members. 



25 



Harnessing Unused 
Energy 

By Arthur S. Bent 
Bent Bros., Los Angeles, Calif. 

HARNESSING unused energy is 
a pretty big and indefinite topie, 
and has doubtless already stirred 
your imaginations in many directions. 
My own first thought was how miracu- 
lously, overnight, life would be changed, 
if human energy could be conserved and 
coordinated, completely. But my subject 
has a simpler and more feasible aspect 
than that. The stupendous possibilities 
of the unused natural energy about us 
have inspired men of all times from 
Archimedes, who cried out for standing 
room while he moved the earth, down to 
our old friend, Bill Nye, who proposed to 
condense water over in Oregon and send 
it to Arizona, there to be diluted for 
irrigation purposes. Rather impractical 
schemes, both of them, we'll say. 

The uncaught forces of nature are still 
on every hand, but when we consider 
how our Morses and Marconis and Curies 
and Edisons and Wrights and Burbanks 
are seizing and harnessing them for our 
use, it seems impossible to overdraw the 
picture of the world's future. 

The story of man's progress in the 
past has been one of sudden, vivid chap- 
ters closely linked up with the harnessing 
of each new T energy from fire to radium. 

Consider transportation. Up to 1830 

26 



it was practically unchanged from the 
days of Alexander the Great. My fore- 
bears went West by ox team. Then 
came steam, and suddenly, after having 
painfully crept only as far West as the 
Missouri in nearly 200 years, we leaped 
the rest of the way to the Pacific Coast 
in decades. H. G. Wells recently said 
that "Without railways and telegraph it 
would be easier to administer California 
from Pekin than from Washington. " We 
know that if our railways should stop, 
this great Nation would fall to pieces, fall 
into little states, and become what Eu- 
rope is today. Well, then, how are we 
going to keep our railways running? 

Great Power Wasted 

I was born in the heart of the high 
Sierras, and so to me unused energy in- 
evitably has one outstanding aspect, 
water power, and its concomitant, irri- 
gation, and I marvel today as I did 
twenty years ago, that we waste our 
precious birthright of fuel energy, while 
our great Western streams run for the 
most part unharnessed and destructive. 
Coal and oil are literally money in the 
bank, but our streams are unused energy, 
and in perpetuity. 

It seems to me a fatuous pride that 
boasts of our material achievements of 
the last fifty years, when as a matter of 
fact, most that we have accomplished 
has been at a bankruptcy cost. We have 
burned down our house to warm our 
hands. We have been the "Coal Oil 
Johnny" of the nations scattering in a 
few hours the accumulated natural 
wealth of ages. 

And now the end of our priceless 
legacy is in sight. Our forests are 

27 



dwindling and we have not replanted 
them. We can count the coal left in our 
cellar. We are already wondering what 
we are going to do for gasoline and for 
lubricating oil. Germany might have 
lost the war for want of lubricants. And 
yet we burn and burn and burn, while 
fifty millions of horsepower runs con- 
tinually to waste. Gentlemen^ that awful 
fire burning day and night should be 
put out. The great army of men who 
feed it should be disbanded and their 
energy, harnessed to that of the water 
and the soil, be turned from destruction 
to production. 

Roughly, it takes 1,000 tons of coal per 
hour to develop a million kilowatt hours 
of energy. Disregarding the waste of ir- 
recoverable coal, just consider the army 
of miners required to produce it. Yet 
three million kilowatt hours can be de- 
veloped by the Colorado River alone in 
only 110 miles of its course. The same 
energy that the labor of one man pro- 
duces by water, requires sixteen men to 
produce by fuel. There's a sixteen to one 
idea well worth our consideration. 

Just think! In the United States this 
very twenty-four hours forty-three mil- 
lion horsepower was developed with our 
precious fuel, while fifty-two million hy- 
dro-horsepower slipped by us unharnessed 
into the seas. And of the labor involved 
in this production, 15/16 was wasted. 
That waste meant roughly : Eight hours 
each for 10,000 men and this means in- 
terest on a capital of $300,000,000. 

And even this takes no account of the 
fact that a large percentage of the trans- 
portation power of our railways is ex- 
pended to haul coal for their own use. 

A good prescription for national pros- 

28 



perity, I take it, is a proper balance be- 
tween raw material, labor and capital. 
What account of this balance has our 
power development program taken thus 
far? 

It is pretty widely agreed that the Pa- 
cific Coast is to be the center of the great- 
est drama of history. In that favored 
and portentous region, lies 50 per cent 
of the potential hydro-electric power of 
the country. When we should be con- 
serving and preparing this strategic re- 
gion for its great destiny, we are wast- 
ing its resources and tearing down its 
defenses. 

Power Problem Acute 

In my own State of California we have 
one million horsepower developed and 
digested, and during the war this was all 
pooled by intercommunication and is now 
available at practically every point in the 
State. This is good. But we have at 
the same time three million of potential 
power not touched, and this is bad. The 
situation with us is acute. We are burn- 
ing the precious oil which should be saved 
for our Navy and Marine, and still we 
are short of power. Our normal growth 
will absorb this entire four million in 
fifteen years, and if the steam roads elec- 
tricize, as they eventually must, it will 
all be needed in ten years, which is none 
too long a time to carry out such a vast 
development program. We can finance 
it — 750 millions in the next eight years, 
but we must have back of us an en- 
lightened public opinion and helpful Fed- 
eral and State legislation. 

It must be remembered that private 
profit frequently does not coincide with 
social gain. The relation between the use- 

29 



fulness of a work and its remuneration 
is often remote. And since we cannot 
safely consider the care of society's needs 
as a by-product of individual enterprise, 
it behooves us as a nation to see to it that 
the way is made easy and not hard, when 
private or community capital seeks such 
essential and beneficent avenues as the 
development of water power, irrigation 
and flood control. 

The Southwest is turning now to the 
Colorado River, where many of the best 
dam sites are within the Grand Canyon 
Park. It happens that the national parks 
of the west are mainly on the roof of the 
country where the great waters have their 
source and thence tumble idly to the val- 
leys below. The beauty of these parks 
should not and need not be destroyed, but 
it is a poor conception of our duty to 
posterity which fails to utilize these 
streams for the development of a great 
and prosperous civilization. 

Usefulness Pointed Out 

In the case of the Grand Canyon of 
Arizona, its splendor and availability will 
be enhanced when we can not only gaze 
into that stupendous gorge from the two 
or three accessible points on its rim, but 
can also ride between its mighty walls 
for miles over beautiful lakes. 

And, of course, when we harness these 
streams to our impulse wheels, we also 
make them available for irrigation, storing 
up their disastrous floods against the dry 
season when their waters are needed — a 
by-product which of itself is worth the 
entire cost, and is not less vital to our 
development. 

In my lifetime I have seen the desert 
which Southern California once was blos- 

30 






som into the garden it is today, by the 
simple process of harnessing its wasted 
waters to the soil. When the Colorado 
River is reservoired it will irrigate three 
million acres of now arid land, trans- 
forming deserts into prosperous commu- 
nities and adding immeasurably to our 
national wealth. 

Here, then, lies at our hand, particu- 
larly in the West, the obvious first answer 
to the problem of harnessing unused en- 
ergy. Water power, the cheapest known 
to man, clean, concentrated, inexhaustible 
so long as nature functions, the last word 
in prime movers ; and its beneficent corol- 
laries, irrigation and flood control. 

The Contractor 

These days will doubtless be known to 
history as the water power age, and will 
mark, here in America, the highest devel- 
opment of the human race. In this in- 
spiring program, we contractors will play 
a leading part, for it is our hands that 
will buckle the harness to this vast en- 
ergy. So it is fitting that we should take 
stock of ourselves. 

To every thoughtful man must come 
the ultimate question of where all these 
marvelous material accomplishments are 
leading us. Is human welfare really keep- 
ing pace with them? Or is it at all true 
that as we advance in efficiency and 
power, happiness and spiritual life are 
receding ? 

It is largely because we general contrac- 
tors have been asking ourselves sober 
questions of this sort, that this young or- 
ganization exists, and this group of men 
is here tonight. The General Contractors 
of America employ steadily a million ef- 
ficient men and touch intimately every 

31 



life in the nation. We realize that this 
vast energy will be largely evil, if it is 
dominated by selfish ambition. We have 
a keen sense of the responsibilities that 
rest upon us. We believe that to no field 
of activity comes greater opportunity for 
human service. 

And so we contractors here, and many 
others not here, are striving to guide the 
destinies of our great industry along lines 
of high Americanism, and to harness our 
energy to intelligent, unselfish, patriotic 
service. We bespeak for our Associa- 
tion your friendly confidence. 



LI BRARY OF CONGRESS 



J I 028 106 600 6 






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